First off, I need to get rid of the elephant in the room – In Japan, this game is known as ‘Exciting Pro Wrestling 5’. Hear that? THAT’S THE SOUND OF YOU DROPPING THE BALL, THQ! Get your heads in the game! Honestly! You keep this up and you’ll end up going bankru–*ahem*. Without further ado, here is the second installment of

A few months back, I read an issue of Retro Gaming (lost it, moved house) and there was a small article on SmackDown! 2 proclaiming it one of the best wrestling games ever made. This infuriated me, and I couldn’t figure out why.

I had the game in 2000, I queued up outside Electronic Boutique to buy it the day it came out, skipping school, and gorging for months on it’s sparkly goodness. I was eventually converted to No Mercy, and through good ol’ father time I began to forget about SmackDown! 2. This is partly because the sequels all sucked (or didn’ live up to SD!2), but mostly it is because No Mercy is one of the best games ever. I am not just talking best wrestling game. I am saying No Mercy is in my top 10 games of all time.

Let us start by first diffusing a popular myth – the Attitude Era of wrestling was garbage. It really was. Granted, the main event was always a spectacular sight to see, and there was no shortage of colourful characters…but for every Stone Cold Steve Austin, there was a Steve Blackman. For every Chris Jericho, there was a Chaz. For every Rock/Austin epic, there was a 20 minute clusterf*ck of skinny fat guys falling all over each other in their quest for a broken belt that changed hands 800 times a night. Continue reading →